His last prank
by Ellsworthy
Summary: James Potter never grew up. Severus Snape is a house elf. And Harry Potter hates his father more than anybody else. HP/SS SLASH


**Author: DecayAndDeath**

**Genres: Drama/Romance**

**Pairings: HP/SS **

**Warnings: House elf SS; slow updates (maybe); a bit OOC; sadistic James Potter (because, really, he was surely not this great after school); don't like? Well, shut up, then! Slash; NOT beta-read and from an author whose first language isn't English**

**Copyright: JK Rowling and Warner Brothers (Copyright exclaimers are so useless... as if I would go and sell my fanfictions)**

**Have fun, ya'll**

* * *

_Harry wasn't half a year old when James Potter's midlife crisis began. It held looking at other women's bums, partying like crazy and drinking alcohol without measure... hadn't they had to go into hiding._

_Nowadays, it was a real surprise when Padfoot or Wormtail came by to say hello or when Lily baked a mouth watering cake for her husband. _

_"__What has happened to me? What have I become?" James knew the answer. A good little hubby who couldn't deny his love anything and was therefore a family man. He had settled down. With Lily. With Harry. In a house which harboured the likeliness of a muggle suburban cottage. _

_He hated it. No, he loved it. He should love it. He had a family, he had an heir. He had it all._

_And he fucking hated every minute of this illusion._

_James wasn't interested in having an heir in the first place. Yes, he loved Harry dearly and he didn't know anyone who doesn't and he loved his wife, his beloved Lily as much as he had the first time he met her, and yes, damn, he simply shouldn't feel obliged to say so, even in his head. _

_But there were moments when he couldn't eat more cake, when his marauder side wanted to break out._

_It couldn't. It didn't have a space in this newly found environment. _

_James knew he would die. _

_He had heard the prophecy. He wasn't dumb enough to believe he would survive the next year._

_He didn't want to be gone from this world without a last prank. Without his last sweet prank, he wouldn't be willing to go to the next great adventure. They whispered "James, we missed you. We missed you so much" and he didn't resist the luring pull towards them._

_James abhorred Snape. To the love of Lily he didn't do a thing against the greasy bastard the last three and a half years. Secretly, he only waited for time alone._

_To strike back._

_To make the git pay for just. Being. Alive._

_He looked at his son who was lightly snoring in his crib. James Potter made a decision. _

_His last great prank would be sweet vengeance and torture all in one. He only regretted bringing Harry in his plan._

_But when the time came, his son would exactly be like him, he had no doubt, and he would detest Snivellus even more than him._

_So he gathered the ingredients, worked in nights and slept most of the day and lied to Lily about the reason. _

_After all, he had work to do._

* * *

Harry's head was thrumming. Uncle Vernon had done a good job in "keeping the freak down".

The boy groaned as he lifted himself from the dirty floor of the smallest bedroom in the house. He quickly got a cup of water and drank it thirstily. When was the last time he had enjoyed the clear liquid so much?

In Hogwarts he had all the foods and drinks he could ever imagine. Here he had a crap load of chores, broken bones and general abuse from a whale of man and his son and a screeching banshee called Petunia who loved to throw pans at children.

Harry snorted. The summer holidays had him getting more and more sarcastic. When he spent time sleeping he had nightmares and when he was awake he was yelled at.

Careful not to brush the bruises he laid down on the "remotely more comfortable than the floor"- mattress.

He started to think. About Cedric, about Sirius, about the order, about Voldemort (which ended in a headache), about the homework he didn't have access to and about how and if he ever made it out of this war alive. He wasn't sure, never been.

Today was his sixteenth birthday and he had nearly lost the hope to survive Voldemort.

All he felt was numbness as he fell asleep on the bloodied bed.

* * *

Severus Snape long since the resurrection of the Dark Lord struggled not to jump off of a bridge. The constant pressure of both sides rested on his shoulders. It was his task to prevent the Dark Lord from finding out about his intentions. It was his task to supply Albus Dumbledore information on the dark side.

He wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the Potter brat. He'd sworn to protect Harry even if he died doing so and he was a man who kept his promises.

Severus shot a glare to the calendar which rested on his kitchen table.

The 31st of July – Harry Potter's birthday.

Lovely.

The insufferable brat would surely be partying with his relatives. Spoilt and arrogant as he was. Just like his father had been.

Severus was glad he could mentally adjust himself to hate Potter. He wasn't entirely sure if he could have done it if the boy had looked more like Lily.

His Dark Mark had been stinging for quite a while, now.

Soon the Dark Lord would be calling out for him.

Severus poured some tea into the china he had inherited from his mother.

It was half past twelve at night when a dreadful feeling crept up Severus' neck. Was it the Dark Lord? Had he found out about his true alliances and decided to slowly poison Severus from afar?

No, Severus deducted, if it truly was the Dark Lord, he would be dead by now.

What was it?

There was a sudden strike of sharp pain in his mind, tearing down the walls he had so carefully set during his life. While he tried to breathe in clear strokes of air, it became more difficult to do so when a sickening hot searing ache developed in his lower parts.

Shrinking, widening, whatever.

All Severus thought clouded in a world of emotional distress. Feelings he had buried within his darkest corners of mind were now drifting forward.

He let a sob shook throughout his body.

Then all of a sudden – it disappeared.

Severus' shaky breath echoed in the darkness of the room. Everything in his body felt absolutely tense and his occlumency walls... they had vanished!

Bugger, Severus thought.

How was he fucking able to encounter the Dark Lord now? How was he able to do _fucking anything _now?! With his walls down there wasn't a shield from the taunting remarks he heard in school. He snorted. How would it be to finally perceive the hate in its full dimension? Would it destroy him? Would it be anything like the years of abuse within his home? Or would it be more like the bullying he had dealt with at Hogwarts?

On the contrary belief, Severus wasn't a natural occlumens. He had spent years and years with research on that matter, starting from the very tender age of fourteen. His first "wall" was a quite transparent sheet between his mind and the outside world. It didn't hold a legilimens, but could hide some of his emotions well. That was when he had been sixteen.

After training and more research he finally reached a nearly perfect wall at age twenty-six. He had known it would come in handy. Especially with children to teach who weren't better than James Potter and Sirius Black. Also he wasn't like the naive infantry. He knew the Dark Lord would come back sooner or later.

And now... it was gone.

He tried to calm himself which itself was now so much harder than before, and whispered into the room: "Calm down, you can... you can build more walls. It will take time but you can make it..."

He didn't want to know what happened when he couldn't.

Severus began building a new wall.

There wasn't a single brick, even after hours of trying.

Severus silently cried as the Dark Mark began to burn.

He would die.

* * *

"Ah, Severussss... good to see you. Decided that you would get here later, hum? _Crucio!_"

Normally, he wouldn't have screamed.

He would have shown a certain amount of resistance against the curse.

Now, he wasn't sure if he could hold anything together.

It hurt. So much.

As Voldemort lifted the curse, Severus had a spasm which ran through his whole body.

"Now, go out of my sssight, you pathetic, worthless piece of trash! For you I don't have anything now, anywaysss!"

Somehow, the words stung. Severus wasn't pathetic! He had many uses! He could clean and wash and serve food with mannerism. He would make every house proud.

Because he was, after all, a very encouraged house elf... wait!

Snape's eyes widened. Had he just thought himself as a house elf? No surely not.

_Yes, you did._

Shit. Damn. Fuck. What the hell was this sudden feeling to prove his worth? What was this endless need to submit? And why the bloody fuck did he have a picture of Harry Potter in his head as had the word 'serve' in mind?!

Confused and tired, Severus apparated home. Though, it wasn't really apparition- somehow he just left a 'pop'-sound and disappeared into the night. He didn't notice, though.

Exhausted, he only laid down on the floor... because he wasn't worth the bed he had...


End file.
